The results of this week’s Disney Plan-a-Palooza? Pretty successful! I thought I’d go ahead and share our plans as an example for you if you’re planning a trip and haven’t yet used Magic Bands or FastPass+. This will be our first time to use the new system and I’d love to hear some honest feedback. Do you think this plan is solid? Bear in mind, we are (have always been) diehard, commando-style Walt Disney World vacationers – but I still feel this plan has enough free time built into it for us to stop and enjoy the Disney magic. Post dinner hours are unplanned so we can decide last-minute if we want to try to take in a show (Fantasmic, Wishes, or Illuminations). For sure we will see Wishes and the Main Street Electrical Parade at the Magic Kingdom at least twice.
We arrive on Sunday, leave on Saturday. We’re staying at Old Key West – we’ve never stayed there before, but it’s an extremely economical use of our DVC points. Most of our points are being used at Bay Lake Tower for our (Raymond and I) 25th Anniversary trip in October for Epcot’s Food and Wine Festival. Note: In these plans, FastPasses (FP+) are listed by start time only, we have an hour once the start time begins to use them.
Here’s the plan:
Sunday afternoon: Magic Kingdom – Lunch / Snack on the run. FP+’s:
- Space Mountain (1:50 pm)
- Journey of the Little Mermaid (2:50 pm)
- Big Thunder Mountain (4:50 pm).
Then we’ll walk around and enjoy being in the Magic Kingdom until we have to leave for dinner. Dinner is at 7:30 in Downtown Disney at Raglan Road.
Monday Morning: Extra Magic Hour (EMH) – Animal Kingdom at 8:00 am. Planning to ride Expedition Everest, then the Kilimanjaro Safari, then take it easy and play it by ear until after lunch (counter service). Eat a fairly early lunch and park hop!
Monday Afternoon: Disney’s Hollywood Studios – FP+’s:
- Toy Story Midway Mania (1:30 pm)
- Twilight Zone Tower of Terror (3:13 pm)
- Star Tours (4:15 pm).
Dinner is at 7:30 on the Boardwalk at the Flying Fish Cafe.
Tuesday Morning: Extra Magic Hour (EMH) – Epcot at 8:00 am. Planning to ride Soarin’ then leisurely enjoy the morning doing whatever appeals to us until enjoying an early lunch (counter service).
Tuesday Afternoon: Back to Animal Kingdom! FP+’s:
- Kali River Rapids (12:30 pm)
- Expedition Everest (2:10 pm)
- DINOSAUR (3:15 pm).
A quick bus ride away, we’ll enjoy dinner at Boma in the Animal Kingdom Lodge (7:00 pm). Pre-dinner animal viewing on the savannah overlook is a must!
Wednesday Morning: EMH – Disney’s Hollywood Studios at 8:00 am. Planning to ride Toy Story Midway Mania and Rock’n’ Roller Coaster first then relax and see what the wait times are for MuppetVision 3D, The Great Movie Ride, Tower of Terror and more. It’s Raymond’s birthday, so we’ll defer to his picks – he LOVES Rock’n’ Roller Coaster – it’s his most favorite ride in the World. Won’t surprise me if we ride it more than once if the standby line wait time is not too terrible.
Wednesday Afternoon: Epcot – FP+’s:
- The Seas With Nemo & Friends (2:45 pm)
- Soarin’ (3:55 pm)
- Spaceship Earth (5:00 pm).
Dinner in Epcot’s World Showcase at Tutto Italia (7:15 pm). After Spaceship Earth we can pick up a cold beverage to enjoy as we may your way to the Italy Pavilion.
Thursday Morning: EMH – Magic Kingdom at 8:00 am. Our plans are to ride the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train first. It should be open by then and if I can score a FastPass for it on Sunday or Friday afternoon, I’ll do that for sure. After the Dwarfs, we’ll be free to do what we please – Haunted Mansion, Pirates, and Jungle Cruise are must-do attractions for us, so we’ll be trying to fit those in. This is where the longer-than-ever-before standby lines will cause us the most pain.
Thursday Afternoon: Epcot – FP+’s – Don’t laugh. We only really needed/wanted one FastPass 
this day, but felt obligated to select three so…
- Journey into Imagination with Figment(2:00 pm) – I KNOW! You don’t have to say it.
- Test Track (3:00 pm)
- Turtle Talk with Crush (4:20 pm). I don’t care if it’s supposed to be for little kids…I LOVE it.
After that we’ll scoot on back to our resort so we can relax before getting cleaned up for our 7:45 ADR at 1900 Park Fare. I want to get some great pictures at this character meal (Cinderella, the Prince, Lady Tremaine and the Step Sisters) and would prefer The Fam look a little less park-worn for the evening.
Friday Morning: Disney’s Hollywood Studios – 8:00 am. It’s Star Wars Weekend! This will be our day to do as we please while enjoying the festive party atmosphere that Star Wars Weekends always bring. Of course we’ll dash for either Toy Story Midway Mania or Rock’n’ Roller Coaster first thing, but after that, we’ll be taking it easy and soaking up the sights…that is until we enjoy our noon ADR at Hollywood Brown Derby for lunch. Then we hop!
Friday Afternoon: Magic Kingdom – FP+’s are for…
- Splash Mountain (3:15)
- Space Mountain (4:15)
- Big Thunder Mountain (8:00)
Being our last day, we’ll be trying to make the most of it. Counter Service for dinner will allow us more time to walk around and say farewell until next time.
So, if you were taking this trip, what would you change? If you’ve got any pointers or tips to share about Old Key West, I’d love to hear them – especially pertaining to which bus stops are the best!
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Never been to Disneyland so I’m just going to say this sounds like a wonderful plan! Anything Disney is bound to be awesome! Can’t wait to bring the kids! The closest one we have is in Hong Kong and we hope to be able to go by next year.
Have a great time!
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with hopping! If you’ve got park hoppers you might as well use ’em, and I think you’re strategy for using FP+ is sound. The only thing I’d say is that I have heard that Ariel’s Undersea Adventure doesn’t need a FP… but that’s what I’ve HEARD. I used one on our last trip, didn’t notice a big standby line but it was October and there weren’t many big standby lines at all. I mean generally, I feel like if there’s something you KNOW you want to do the FP+ is your way to make SURE you do it. And otherwise just do what you feel. So really, I don’t think you need any feedback so long as you like the plans! 😀
I envy you! I hope I’m planning my trip again sometime soon. It’ll be a while though before I can pick out FP+ either way, though. 😉 Hope you had fun Plan-A-Paloozing this week!
Hey Rebecca! Good point about The Mermaid ride…I could switch that for HM or Pirates OR wait and see if the 7 Dwarfs Mine Train shows up in the FP system and go for that!!! Have you booked anyone yet on the June 6th Norway Fjords cruise?…booking that after being on hold for two hours took up much more time on Plan-a-Palooza day than making FP+ choices. But we are beside ourselves with excitement! And sticker shock.
No cruise bookings yet I’m afraid… I mainly have first-time cruisers and they tend to start with Bahamians. I was all set to wait on hold for hours too! 😉 But YAY! So glad you’re going on the Norway cruise! I’m really looking forward to hearing about that one! I hope they do it in 2016 too. There are so few sailings this year!
As for a replacement FP+ at MK: I say, hold onto it to see if you can book Mine Train. And if not, my vote goes for Pirates, simply because I really like the queue additions to HM… if your opinion varies, ignore me. 😉
But I like your opinions, Rebecca! I’m probably going to leave the choice up to Raymond since we are once again celebrating his birthday at WDW…funny how that keeps happening. Coincidence? I think not.
I think it looks like a good solid plan. We always park hop, too, so I understand where you’re coming from. My boys are night owls, so we do PM EMH rather than AM EMH. Other than that, looks very similar to my tentative plan for our August trip. (Yup, I’ve already got my FP+ times picked out for that…in theory, anwyays!)
My husband and I got to try out FP+ in January, and found that it worked much more smoothly than we’d anticipated. Our boys are lamenting the “only 3 FPs per day” limitation. What with that survey Disney has been sending out that mentions the possibility of a revolving 4th FP+, I”m hoping this goes into effect before August!
Or maybe even before May! I’m glad you looked over the plan for me, Heather…I trust your opinion. I’m rediculously excited about the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train!!! Can’t wait to try it.
I have a lot of hope for changes now that they’re allowing pre-booking of FP+ for offsite guests as well as on-site! Little by little we’re getting somewhere… I hope anyway. 🙂
Looks like a fantastic plan! Have a great time!
Thanks! There are a few people that are bound to think we’re crazy for all the hopping, but that’s the strategy we decided on this time. If it doesn’t seem to be working well, we can always adjust. Thanks for reading and commenting, Lisa!